Terje Rød-Larsen

Terje Rød-Larsen (born November 22, 1947) is a Norwegian sociologist and diplomat. As director of the Fafo research institute he helped establish, at the request of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the secret channel that produced the 1993 Declaration of Principles; he later served as a United Nations Under-Secretary-General and as president of the International Peace Institute (IPI) in New York from 2005 to 2020.¹² He resigned from IPI in October 2020 after the disclosure that he had secured donations from foundations linked to Jeffrey Epstein and a personal loan of 130,000 dollars from Epstein in 2013.³ In February 2026 Norway's economic crime unit, Økokrim, formally named his wife, the diplomat Mona Juul, as a suspect in aggravated corruption and Rød-Larsen as a suspect in complicity in it, in connection with their dealings with Epstein; both deny wrongdoing.²⁴

Fafo and the Oslo Channel

Rød-Larsen studied history, philosophy, and sociology and taught at the universities of Bergen and Oslo before founding the Fafo Institute for Applied Social Science in Oslo in 1981. As its director he began a study of living conditions among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The contacts he made with Palestinians and Israelis during that project led the PLO in 1992 to ask him to help set up a secret channel for negotiations with the government of Israel; those negotiations ended with the signing of the Declaration of Principles at the White House on September 13, 1993. Juul also took part in the Oslo negotiations.¹³

In 1993 he was appointed ambassador and special adviser to the Norwegian foreign minister for the Middle East peace process, and in mid-1994 United Nations Special Coordinator in the Occupied Territories, based in Gaza. He returned to Norway at the end of 1996 to serve as Minister of Planning, and in January 1998 was again appointed ambassador and special adviser on the peace process. On September 21, 1999 Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed him United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and his personal representative to the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, with the rank of Under-Secretary-General.¹

The International Peace Institute and Epstein

On July 22, 2013 Epstein wrote to Boris Nikolic, the science adviser to Bill Gates, and to Rød-Larsen: "ipi has not heard from gabriella ."⁵ In the same year Rød-Larsen took a personal loan of 130,000 dollars from Epstein, which the institute later said he repaid in full from his own funds.³

On October 13, 2018, eleven days after the journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Rød-Larsen forwarded to Epstein a message from Fabrice Aidan containing Elliott Abrams's Washington Post column "Why Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance will haunt the Saudi government," distributed by the Council on Foreign Relations.⁶

After the Norwegian business daily Dagens Næringsliv reported on the relationship among Rød-Larsen, IPI, and Epstein, IPI's board, chaired by the former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, announced on October 29, 2020 that Rød-Larsen had resigned and had apologized for his "failed judgment" in securing donations from Epstein-related foundations and for the personal loan, "neither of which the board was aware of." The board said "IPI never made a payment to Epstein," called Epstein's crimes "hideous," and said it would "conduct an immediate audit of IPI's finances." Adam Lupel became acting president. In October 2020 UN Secretary-General António Guterres informed IPI that he had decided not to serve outside entities "whether in an honorary, advisory, or other capacity."³ IPI's relationship with the Norwegian foreign ministry, which had funded it, had earlier been criticized by Norway's Office of the Auditor General.²

The 2026 Disclosures and the Økokrim Charges

The January 2026 release of Justice Department files under the Epstein Files Transparency Act reopened the matter. According to reports on the release, Epstein's will, amended two days before his death in August 2019, left several million dollars, reported as 10 million dollars, to the two youngest children of Rød-Larsen and Juul. Rød-Larsen's lawyer, John Christian Elden, said that neither Rød-Larsen nor anyone else in the family knew of the bequest in advance.²⁴

Juul, then Norway's ambassador to Jordan and Iraq, was suspended and on February 8, 2026 resigned. She told the news agency NTB that it had been "imprecise" to describe her contact with Epstein as minimal, that it had "originated in her husband's relationship with Epstein," and that it had been "sporadic and private, not part of her official duties." Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide called her resignation "correct and necessary," said her contact showed "a serious lapse in judgment," and said Rød-Larsen "also had shown poor judgment regarding Epstein." The ministry opened a review of its funding of and contact with IPI during Rød-Larsen's presidency.⁴

On February 9, 2026 Økokrim announced that it had opened an investigation and formally named (siktet) Juul as a suspect in aggravated corruption, related to her positions in the foreign ministry, and Rød-Larsen as a suspect in aggravated corruption through complicity; the Associated Press reported that Juul "is suspected of gross corruption" and that Økokrim suspects Rød-Larsen "of aiding and abetting gross corruption." Its chief, Pål Lønseth, described the investigation as extensive and likely to be long-running and did not rule out naming further suspects. Investigators searched an apartment in Oslo's Frogner district and the home of a witness. Elden said the suspicion covered a 2018 transaction for that apartment and travel preceding it, that his client was surprised by the decision and had cooperated fully, and that he expected the case to be dismissed. Juul's lawyer, Thomas Skjelbred, said she did not recognize herself in the allegation and would cooperate.² Økokrim had opened a separate investigation of the former Norwegian prime minister Thorbjørn Jagland on February 5, 2026, also for aggravated corruption.² Jagland had appeared in Epstein's messages to the Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin in September 2016 as a guest who "will be staying with me."⁷